LCD and MIOS problem

[fadedpaper]

When I power on my core module with sid and lcd attached, I get 2 rows (top and bottom) full of black boxes on the lcd. I've read that you're only supposed to get 1 row when MIOS is not installed. Yeah? Anyways, I've found that by turning it off and on a few times eventually it will come on with just the top row blacked-out (like normal I suppose). In MIOS Studio I'm getting this message every time I turn it on:

Sysex message: F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7

I've been trying to upload MIOS to my core, but not sure if I'm having any luck. I don't even know if I need to, cause I bought the pic from SmashTV, and it has a sticker on it that says "BSL V1.2b MIOS V1.9f" So does that mean MIOS is already uploaded?

Yeah, so I'm obviously a newbie, sorry bout that. Can anyone shed some light here?

[Wilba]

I believe the line of black boxes is just the LCD's internal bootup test thing. Not all displays do that. One or two bars should be OK

If you only get one SysEx message, that means MIOS is already installed (as it should be if the PIC comes from SmashTV). Only if you get repeated SysEx messages is MIOS not installed (just the bootloader).

If you are not seeing "MIOS V1.9f" on the LCD and then the "READY." message then that's a Core->LCD problem.

[fadedpaper]

Great, thanks! I'll triple check my connections there.